I finished getting our bamboos into the ground today
as Susan mentioned it was back-breaking work. We had to dig deep (~30") holes for each to put in 25"-29" rhizome barriers around each bed so that they don't take over the neighborhood, so it was a lot of dirt shifted to the planter bed near the backdoor... I use the term 'dirt' loosely given the crap we dug up: mostly gravel, hard pan clay and a bit of construction waste... awful stuff. I amended with lots of compost and topped off with bark mulch but no fertilizing for the first month.
The crap photos don't really do justice, and as you can see they won't hide my neighbor's lovely paint job (nor give us privacy on the porch) for a while, but they will, and probably within 2-3 years. The p. nigra at the back is a black timber variety which will grow to 30' with 2-2.5"canes, and the p. bissetii to its right will grow to 25' while the p. a. 'Flavescens Inversa' to the left should reach 30' as well.
In front of those is an oval bed with some smaller, clumping varieties: a fargesia sp. 'Scabrida' that has very interesting, orangy canes; a small p. fortunei with nice white-striped leaves and an even smaller, bushy 'dwarf whitestripe' which probably won't exceed 2' in height.
Eventually the nearer (to the porch) bed with the clumping varieties should provide a nice visual counterpoint to the taller species near the fence.
We left a good amount of space (minimum 2') around each bed for a gravel pathway and a large clearing area between the front and rear beds for a bench or maybe a play house for Malcolm someday. Once the bamboo grows up tall he can hide back there and make it his secret place.
again, apologies for the awful snaps... just wanted to capture the moment.
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